In the previous session on Sunday, the main defendant in the trial -- Ali Hassan al-Majid or "Chemical Ali" -- expressed ignorance about the existence of such camps established by his forces during the so-called Anfal campaign.

Majid, the cousin of Saddam Hussein and a former defence minister, is charged with genocide over the slaughter of 182,000 Kurds in the military operation in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq.

His five co-defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The accused claim that the campaign was a necessary counter-insurgency operation against Kurdish guerrillas at a time when the country was at war with neighbouring Iran.

On Monday, prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon presented a document issued by the health office in the northern city of Kirkuk in June, 1988.

The document was a letter to the Kirkuk civil authorities saying that the morgue at the city's main hospital was receiving bodies of families detained in Top Zawa detention centre without any attached papers.

The health office demanded that the detention centre send bodies with proper "documents attached with the bodies".

Showing the letter to the court, Faroon said: "Yesterday, defendant Ali Hassan al-Majid mentioned that he never heard of a place called Top Zawa, so here we show this document that proves that dead people were sent from Top Zawa to the hospitals without any official documemnts."

Faroon also presented further documents relating to the detention centre, including one from the military head of the camp to the hospital telling it to receive the bodies and bury them.

One letter showed that the bodies of 13 Kurds, seven of them women, were sent to the morgue at Kirkuk by the detention centre.

On Sunday, Majid said he did not know such camps existed.

"Believe me. I did not know these camps till I came here in this court," he told chief judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah.

"I swear by Allah... I did not know of any detention facility."

Majid, who earned his nickname "Chemical Ali" after using chemical weapons against the Kurds, acknowledged on Sunday that orders to relocate thousands of Kurds and demolish their villages were given by him.

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